Chapter 23 — The Mask Isn't Real

The girl stood in front of the gate of the Moon Painting workshop at exactly nine o'clock in the morning, a small cloth bag slung over her shoulder, her hair tied neatly, looking both nervous and trying to hide her anxiety with an unnecessarily upright standing posture.

"You are Thao Linh, right?" Uyen Nhi walked out, smiling friendly.

"Yes, hello." The girl bowed her head, her voice trembling. "I'm sorry if I'm too early."

"It's okay, go inside." Uyen Nhi opened the door wide and invited the girl into the workshop.

Thao Linh walked in, her eyes wide open and she looked around - a stack of wooden molds on a shelf, a drying pole for colored paper, a small display area with two real and fake masks placed side by side, a photo of Mr. Tuyen hanging on the wall. She stood silently for a moment in front of the display area, reading each line of captions with absolute attention.

"I read Mr. Nhat Vu's article three times in a row." She said, her voice was still a bit shy but her eyes were clearly brighter. "I didn't expect that making a papier-mâché mask would be so complicated and require so much dedication. Before, I just thought it was a children's toy."

"A lot of people think so." Uyen Nhi smiled and poured the girl a cup of tea. "So why do you want to learn this profession?"

Thao Linh was silent for a moment, holding her teacup with both hands, as if trying to organize her thoughts. "My grandmother passed away last year. She once told me that when she was young, she lived near a factory making papier-mâché masks. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, the whole neighborhood eagerly waited for new shipments. She said the smell of sticky rice paste, the smell of new paper, was the smell of her childhood. After she passed away, I kept thinking about that, then I happened to read an article about your factory, about this true-fake story. I thought, maybe this is a way for me to keep a part of her memories, even though she is no longer there. anymore."

Uyen Nhi felt an emotion rising in her heart, not a noisy emotion, but a deep, quiet sympathy. She understands better than anyone the feeling of wanting to keep something of the deceased through her own hands.

"Are you patient?" Uyen Nhi asked, her voice more serious. "This profession doesn't take just a month or two to master. It can sometimes take a whole year just to get used to making paper evenly, let alone mixing colors or drawing eyes."

"I think I do." Thao Linh replied, her eyes determined. "I often teach myself how to draw at home, sometimes I sit all day just to practice one line to get it right. My parents say I'm stubborn and I have to do it right no matter what I do."

Uyen Nhi laughed, hearing that sentence reminded her of herself in the first years of her apprenticeship, when her teacher once commented that she was "the most stubborn among the students he taught". "Okay then, I will accept you as a three-month trial student. If after three months you still want to continue, and I feel that you are truly destined for the profession, I will accept you as an official student."

Thao Linh's face lit up, she nodded repeatedly, almost spilling the cup of tea in her hand because she was so excited. "Thank you very much! I promise to study hard."

Uyen Nhi took the girl around the factory, introducing each basic step, from how to choose the right old newspaper, how to cook sticky rice paste to the right consistency, to how to dry the paper in the shade.

"This is a wooden mold." She stopped in front of the mold shelf, lifted a unicorn head mold to show Thao Linh, and let the girl herself touch the wooden surface that had become shiny from decades of use. "Each mold is hand-carved from wood or jackfruit. It takes up to a month to complete a new mold. The longer the mold is used, the smoother the surface is, and the more beautiful the mask comes out."

Thao Linh held the mold, turned it gently in her hand, her fingers gliding along each delicately carved line. "It's heavier than I thought." She said, her voice filled with pleasant surprise. "And every line has a purpose, it's not a coincidence, right?"

"That's right." Uyen Nhi nodded, satisfied with the young girl's subtle observation. "The mold engraver must clearly understand the personality of each character - the mischievous Uncle Cuoi, the gentle Ms. Hang, the gentle Mr. Dia - to convey that exact spirit into each engraved line."

They continued past the color mixing area, where Uyen Nhi explained the origin of each natural color — red from ripe gac, yellow from fresh turmeric, black from finely crushed bamboo charcoal — and how to mix them with diluted sticky rice paste to create lasting color without damaging the paper underneath. Thao Linh attentively took notes in a small notebook she brought with her, occasionally stopping to ask for more details, making Uyen Nhi even more confident in her choice to accept her as a probationary student. Tuyen, working in the corner of his own workshop, also stopped to say hello. His eyes looked at the young girl with a special affection, perhaps because he understood better than anyone else the feeling of being given a chance to start.

"Hello." He said, his voice warm. "If you need to learn more about mold engraving or shaping, just ask me and I will teach you."

"Yes, thank you, uncle." Thao Linh bowed her head politely, her eyes still unable to hide her curiosity as she looked at the wood carving tools displayed on Tuyen's table.

Thao Linh's first trial lesson started that afternoon, with the simplest task - tearing old newspaper into small pieces that fit her hand, preparing for the next batch of paper mache. That seemingly boring job made the young girl so attentive that she lost track of time, tearing up paper for hours without a single complaint.

Late in the afternoon, when Uyen Nhi checked the pile of torn papers, she noticed that Thao Linh had sorted them by size and neatly arranged them into separate piles - a small detail, no one asked for it, but clearly showed the meticulousness and sense of responsibility rare in an apprentice on the first day.

"You did well." Uyen Nhi praised, looking at the carefully arranged pile of papers. "Not everyone who is an apprentice pays attention to such details on the first day."

Thao Linh blushed and bowed her head in confusion at the compliment. "I just thought, if the paper is already sorted, you will save more time when you start filling it. I don't want to bother everyone with my clumsiness."

Uyen Nhi looked at the young girl, a warm feeling spread in her heart, exactly like the feeling she had when her teacher first praised her, more than ten years ago. She suddenly realized that this was the moment the wheel of this traditional profession continued to spin, not because of force, not because of profit, but because of a sincere love passed from generation to generation, even though sometimes it had to go through the most bumpy turns.

Before leaving, Thao Linh stopped at the door, looked back at the entire workshop again, her eyes sparkled with something exactly like the excitement Uyen Nhi had seen in herself many years ago. "Sister, can I come earlier tomorrow? I want to see more about the paper drying process."

"Okay." Uyen Nhi smiled and saw her off to the gate. "I will wait for you."

Standing and watching Thao Linh's shadow disappear at the end of the village road, Uyen Nhi turned back to the workshop and saw Tuyen still sitting quietly at the corner of her table. His eyes followed the direction the girl had just gone with an indescribable pensive look.

"What do you think?" Uyen Nhi asked, sitting down next to him.

"I think of myself, when I was twenty-two years old, when I first walked into this factory." Tuyen smiled, her eyes distant and nostalgic. "I'm also excited, I'm also afraid of bothering others, I'm also trying to prove that I'm not a useless person. Looking at that girl, I feel like I see myself again more than twenty years ago."

"Do you think, if things had been different that day, where would you be now?" Uyen Nhi asked softly, not sure if she should ask that question or not, but curiosity accidentally slipped out of her mouth.

Tuyen was silent for a moment, then shook her head slightly. "I don't want to think about what could have been, Uyen Nhi. I just want to focus on what I have right now — a decent job, a child who is getting healthier, and perhaps, soon, a new student to help us preserve this profession for another generation."

Uyen Nhi nodded, looking out at the yard in front of the workshop, where the afternoon sunlight was dyeing the banana left yellow, gently swaying in the wind. She thought about the journey that had passed — from a chance discovery on a phone screen, to nights of intense investigation, tearful confrontations, and now, a new beginning budding amid the healed brokenness. She wondered if her teacher had lived to see all of this, if he would have been proud of the way she chose to handle everything — not with absolute punishment, but with a patient effort to mend each broken piece, even at the cost of her own trust and peace.